Maxwell waited in his kingdom of smog, wondering what was going on outside his realm's borders. His sight was limited to within his realm, and so he could not look outside his kingdom's borders to see if his forces were winning or losing.

So Maxwell was left to stew and wonder in indecision. The big decision he was left with should build more focus to reinforce the ones already invading or not so he could build forces to defend his realm if needed. The problem with making decisions such as these is you need information on how the battles are going.

He did not have such information, as neither Bunet nor Horter were staying in contact and giving him reports on what the situation was. So he was left in a state of limbo where he didn't know if his forces were about to achieve total victory or if they had been broken and a counterattack was on its way to destroy them as they waited for news.

Maxwell kept thinking on it and eventually realized he needed to do something, though it couldn't be either of the options he had been thinking about before. So he came up with a third option that had worked for him before, which was it was time for more research and development.

This way, hopefully, whether they won or lost, his commanders Bunet and Horter would come back and tell him what exactly had happened. At which point he would have more advanced units for them to use no matter the situation that turned out to be. So it was time to see if he could get the parts he needed to make improved models from the hive of the undead.

Luckily, as it had demonstrated before, the hive of the undead was rather adaptable with what it spawned, and soon some non-animated corpses of some hornets and butterflies were provided for his experimentation. Maxwell looked at the bodies for a moment, thinking on what he should do first to make improvements, and figured he would start with the basics.

So he first combined two corpses of a hornet, though unlike what he did with his zombie commanders, he did not have them form a humanoid form. No, instead he had the two corpses of hornets come together back to back, moving the insect wings to the side. Then he proceeds to combine their spines and merge their stingers.

Maxwell then took a moment to look at his new hornet creation, having it maneuver in the air for a bit. Maxwell saw it had lost a lot of its speed and maneuverability. But it had gained a lot in attack power, as once it reached a certain height and simply dropped onto its target, it would do some damage if it hit.

Maxwell, satisfied with his combined hornet, moved on to his butterflies, taking two of their corpses and beginning to combine them just as he had done with the hornets. Maxwell took a moment to gaze at the butterfly bodies and tried to figure out how best their bodies could be used to make an improved undead creation.

Maxwell came up with an idea and then proceeded to act on it. He took both butterflies and then proceeded to connect them at the ends, leaving both heads at opposing ends. He then began to combine the limbs to better bear the creature's own weight. He left the wings alone so that the new undead butterfly now sported right butterfly wings.

Maxwell had this newly improved undead butterfly, like the hornet before it, perform maneuvers in the air to prove its body worked properly. It performed some rather graceful maneuvers, showing that its body functioned properly and the beauty of its wings. Which was rather good, as the most dangerous thing about an undead butterfly was its wings, which could hypnotize others.

Maxwell spent a good, solid moment watching his two new undead creations as they flew through the air before deciding he should get more advanced with his experimentation. So it was time to use his smog to create more advanced types of undead hornets and butterflies.

So just as before, he took two corpses, though this time he started with the butterflies instead of the hornets. He filled one with angry necrotic smog and the other with sad necrotic smog. The results were strangely dazzling as both butterflies came to unlife.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

As the one butterfly brought to undeath with angry necrotic smog had its wings become an angry shade of red. The butterfly born from angry necrotic snog almost seemed to pulsate rage, while the other butterfly brought to undeath with sad necrotic smog was the opposite.

The other butterfly born through sad necrotic smog took on a sickly green color that gave of a feeling of sadness as if all was lost. With the butterflies done, Maxwell moved on to the hornets, seeing what effects the advanced form of smog would have on them. So he grabbed two hornet corpses and got to work.

He decided to see what would happen if he filled one of the hornet bodies with sad necrotic slang first. The hornet in question began to visibly droop, somehow falling in on itself slightly as well as constantly dripping a strange blackish-green venom from its stinger.

The hornet brought to life by the angry necrotic smog grew spikes out of its size, and its mandibles became much sharper. Its stinger also gained extra barbs, showing itself to be rather ferocious in appearance alone without taking into account the aura of feral rage it gave off.

Maxwell watched the now six upgraded undead units as they flew in the air. He spent a long time just enjoying his new creations as they flew around and making sure everything worked right with them before finally confirming the experiments were done, finalizing the results of his recent experiments. To confirm the result of his work, a blue screen appeared.

Through your expermination of necromancy you have unlocked the following units:

Undead Hornet javelin- a combination of two hornets that uses its large stinger to deliver a fatal blow from above

Angry smog hornet- a hornet revived with necrotic rage smog and as such has had its agonizing sting improved with a bleed effect

Sad smog hornet- a hornet revived with sad necrotic smog because of this it's agonizing sting has been changed to weeping sting. :Weeping stong- caused a total lose of hope and eventual death turning them into weeping zombie.

Undead dazzlingly butterfly- a combination of two butterflies into one undead one. This allowed it to use it hypnotic wings on a much larger scale enslaving far more to its will.

Angry smog butterfly- a butterfly revived with angry necrotic smog causing its hypnotic wings to be changed so that they only cause rage instead of being controlled but the rage they induce is far stronger than the control.

Sad smog butterfly- a butterfly revived with sad necrotic smog causing its hypnotic wings to be altered so that caused great sadness in all who behold them instead of being enslaved to their will.

Maxwell looked at the blue screen, going over it and being sure to read everything before being satisfied. "Looks good as far as I can tell; hopefully, Bunet and Horter can make good use of them." Maxwell said to himself. He then went back to watching his new creations as they flew through the air, getting lost in the colors of his new butterflies.

Though as time went on, the anticipation built, and he began to wonder when the news would finally reach him about whether his forces had won or lost. That's when a purple screen suddenly appeared to inform of the outcome of Burnet's and Horter's invasion.

Your forces are victorious

The invasion force under the co-command of Horter and Bunet having taking the third clan's home forcing them to flee.

Now that you have taken the clans village all their former territory that was theirs is now yours.

You territory is under the grow your lawn policy which will cause the transformation of all the land from pixie grass land into undead grass land.

Maxwell looked at the report, and, well, he was happy they had won the battle, and he could already feel his territory growing as his necrotic smog went across the land by a few dozen feet from what his territory already was. Though he very much wanted to hear from Bunet and Horter about how the battles went.

As the report stated, they had driven off the third pixie clan, which meant there were at least two other grass pixie clans to be worried about. So he needed to know how much of the invasion force remained and what exactly they had gotten from the taking clan's village.

So suffice it to say, Maxwell was very interested in the report from his zombie commanders. As apparently the war had barely begun and he hadn't even known he was at war with a larger group of grass pixies besides the one to his south. But hopefully he and his kingdom would be ready for what was to come.